The passengers on board, including railway officials and journalists, were shifted to a different train.
WEB DESK
A day after it was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India’s fastest train, Vande Bharat Express, broke down on Saturday morning.
According to News 18, the snag occurred around 15km away from the Tundla junction in Uttar Pradesh, around 200 km away from the national capital.
According to railway officials, the train began making a “weird noise” early on Saturday morning after which its breaks jammed in one of the trailing coaches. Four coaches turned ‘dead load’, forcing loco pilots to halt.
They said that one of the possible reasons for the snag was the train hitting a cow on the tracks. The passengers on board, including railway officials and journalists, were shifted to a different train.
The train was making its way back to New Delhi, from where it was launched on Friday. It is set to begin its commercial run from Sunday.
The engineers on board got in touch with principal chief mechanical engineer of the Northern Railway and the train has been restarted, officials said.
They further said that the return journey was taking place at night, which is not the normal run time as the train will operate during the day, adding that cattle runs and possibility of fog are higher at night.
Officials have rushed to the spot to figure out the next course of action. It is likely that Vande Bharat Express will be taken to the nearest maintenance station. The train is not yet opened for commercial run.
Speaking to reporters on board the train, railway minister Piyush Goyal had said this state of the art train will offer a convenient experience to passengers and reduce travel time on the New Delhi-Varanasi route to eight hours compared to 13-14 hours other trains take for the trip.